Even as Greece desperately tries to avoid defaulting on its debt, American companies are preparing for what was once unthinkable: that Greece could soon be forced to leave the euro zone. Bank of America Merrill Lynch has looked into filling trucks with cash and sending them over the Greek border so clients can continue to pay local employees and suppliers in the event money is unavailable. Ford has configured its computer systems so they will be able to immediately handle a new Greek currency. No one knows just how broad the shock waves from a Greek exit would be, but...

Gangs are one of the most basic, and most potent, building blocks of stateless Fourth Generation war. We commonly think of gangs in connection with crime. But through most of history, the line between crime and war was blurred, often to the point of vanishing. (See Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century.) It was the state that drew the line clearly, but today in much of the Middle East and elsewhere states and the state system are collapsing. What is succeeding the state looks much like the 14th century Europe Tuchman describes: people and regions are at...

BEiRUT – Syrian fighters said they destroyed five helicopters in a raid on a military airport between the northern cities of Aleppo and Idlib Wednesday, while state television said the attack was repelled. Abu Mossab, a rebel who said he took part in the attack, said via Skype that rebels shelled Taftanaz military airport with two tanks captured from the army and destroyed five helicopters. “We destroyed five helicopters as well as buildings in the airport,” Abu Mossab said, although the facility remained in army hands after the raid in which the rebels lost two men before pulling back. “The...

What would you do if your son liked wearing dresses? One dad in Germany decided to put on a skirt of his own in support his little dress-loving fellow. When Nils Pikert's now 5-year-old son started wearing dresses, it turned a few heads but was generally not a big deal in their cosmopolitan hometown of Berlin. But when the family picked up and moved to the smaller South German village, all that changed, reports Gawker. Even though he loved wearing dresses, Pickert's son was too shy to put one on in public for fear of being laughed at, especially...

Lampooning religion has proven an easy way to get into hot water in recent years. Caricatures poking fun, or outright hostility, at Islam have been especially prone to producing controversy -- or even violence. Now, however, it is Germany's Christians who find themselves on the receiving end of an indelicate cartoon. Several religious leaders in Kassel, the western German city that is currently hosting the semi-decadal art exhibition Documenta, have protested against a drawing advertising a show in the city's caricature museum. "I find it problematic when a caricature disparages the very heart of a faith," Barbara Heinrich, a Protestant...

The Supreme Military Council of the Syrian rebels released on a statement on Tuesday which said that the rebel forces took control of an army missile base in Damascus, in which ten ready-to-launch missiles were found. Some of the missiles, according to the statement, were converted to carry non-conventional warheads. “During the successful operation, the operatives of the Free Syrian Army found a large number of rockets ready for launching, with enormous destructive capability, and they were very surprised to find missiles that were converted to carry non-conventional warheads and which can be equipped with chemical or biological warheads,” said...

Fearing additional attack on German soil, Germany offered Black September political upgrade of PLO, 'Der Spiegel' reports. BERLIN – For years, Germany’s government had contact with the organizers of the Black September terror group that was responsible for the murder of 11 Israeli sportsmen and a German police office at the 1972 Olympic Games, German newspaper Der Spiegel reported Sunday. Several months after the murders, the West German government proposed a secret meeting between one of the organizers of the Palestinian terrorist group and then-foreign minister Walter Scheel. The aim of the clandestine meeting was to create a “new basis...

When Greece makes a $3.98 billion loan payment this month to the European Central Bank, one of its international lenders in bailouts, Germany -- which is putting up much of the rescue monies -- will reap the biggest profit, eFXnews reported. FT Deutschland noted that by 2026, when Greece is expected to finish paying off $325 billion in two bailout packages, that Germany could realize $15.8 in gains. In the meantime, Germany has already made significant gains from the very low interest rate it paid to finance its debt as shown in the calculations of economist Jens Boysen-Hogrefe of Germany's...

The president of France formally asked the Syrian opposition to form a provisional government on Monday. "France asks the Syrian opposition to form a provisional government – inclusive and representative – that can become the legitimate representative of the new Syria, “ President Francois Hollande announced in an address at the presidential palace to a group of new French ambassadors. “We are including our Arab partners to accelerate this step. France will recognize the provisional government of Syria once it is formed.” .....

Three years in prison have become a closer prospect for some German followers of Russian punk band Pussy Riot. The Catholic Church has pressed charges against Cologne Cathedral intruders, who now face longer prison terms than their heroes. The three protesters have been charged with disturbing a religious service which, according to German law, could mean up to three years in jail. "The right to demonstration cannot be set above the right to religious freedom and the religious feelings of the congregation,” Cologne Cathedral’s dean told the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper. Three women from Pussy Riot received a two-year prison sentence...

It has been exactly twenty years now, but the images just won’t go away. I remember August 24, 1992 as if it was yesterday. I was eleven years old and on TV I saw houses burning, people applauding, cheering and shouting, “We’ll get all of you!” and “Germany for Germans! Foreigners out!” Those words were directed towards the more than one-hundred people trapped inside the houses. It was in Rostock- Lichtenhagen, a huge housing complex in East Germany, where several thousand Asylum seekers and immigrants were living among some ten thousand Germans. Just days before German authorities planned to evacuate...

Market News International is reporting that the German Finance Ministry may ask Greece to exit the euro "temporarily" while it straightens out its finances. From MNI, citing unnamed "senior eurozone officials" as sources: The officials said that in the view of German Finance Ministry officials mulling the plan, it is now the most likely scenario. But it is not a done deal. There is strong opposition to such a plan among some key European officials, and no decision is likely at least until the end of the year. “It is another working scenario which is not new but has emerged...

A Siberian tiger attacked and killed a female keeper at Cologne zoo on Saturday before being shot dead, a zoo spokesman said. The gate of the tiger's enclosure had not been properly shut, allowing the big cat to jump on the woman and maul and bite her. She later died of her wounds in hospital. The director of the zoo, Theo Pagel, shot the tiger dead from a rooftop, the spokesman added. Police briefly cleared the area after the incident but the zoo later reopened for visitors. The victim's name was not released but she was said to have been...

This week a German doctor in Bavaria filed a criminal complaint against Rabbi David Goldberg. Rabbi Goldberg’s “crime”? He performs ritual circumcisions on Jewish male infants in accordance with Jewish law. The doctor’s complaint came shortly after a ruling by a court in Cologne outlawing the practice of male circumcision. The Austrians and the Swiss also took the ruling to heart and have banned infant male circumcision in several hospitals in Switzerland as well as in the Austrian state of Vorarlberg. Denmark and Scandinavian governments are also considering limiting the practice of circumcision which has constituted one of the foundational...

One simply has to watch the words of the leaders in the Middle East to understand why there won’t be peace anytime soon. “Jerusalem is a Muslim and Christian city, and there will be neither peace nor security until the Israeli occupation, settlements, and settlers leave the city,” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Tuesday. “Jerusalem’s identity is Arab, and the city’s and Christian holy sites must be protected from Israeli threats.” He added that Israeli excavation work in Jerusalem and in the Western Wall tunnels beneath the mosque “will not undermine the fact that the city will forever be...

BERLIN - In the debate in Germany over circumcision, you often hear people say jokingly that if cutting the foreskin off a baby boy’s penis for religious reasons is outlawed then piercing little girls’ earlobes shouldn’t be allowed either. But that’s just the scenario that may be shaping up. After a Cologne court ruled in June that circumcision was illegal, a Berlin judge is examining whether or not ear-piercing should be as well. The issue has come up in conjunction with a suit against a tattoo studio by the parents of a three-year-old girl whose ears were pierced at the...

A German politician is facing a barrage of criticism after denouncing gay couples as the biggest threat to the country’s prosperity after the euro crisis. Katherina Reiche, a state secretary for Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), laid her cards on the table on Tuesday, telling Bild newspaper that Germany's future “lies in the hands of families, not in same-sex partnerships.” What she called, “this demographic development”, was “next to the euro crisis, the biggest threat to German prosperity.” Merkel's Union must, Reiche added, “clearly state that it backs the idea of family, children and marriage, and that society is not...

Iran's Supreme Leader has ordered the country's Revolutionary Guards to intensify its campaign of terror attacks against the West and its allies in retaliation for supporting the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. According to Western intelligence officials, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave the order to the elite Quds Force unit following a recent emergency meeting of Iran's National Security Council in Tehran held to discuss a specially-commissioned report into the implications for Iran of the Assad regime's overthrow. Damascus is Iran's most important regional ally, and the survival of the Assad regime is regarded as vital to sustaining the...

Female students in Iran have been barred from more than 70 university degree courses in an officially-approved act of sex-discrimination which critics say is aimed at defeating the fight for equal women's rights. In a move that has prompted a demand for a UN investigation byIran's most celebrated human rights campaigner, the Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, 36 universities have announced that 77 BA and BSc courses in the coming academic year will be "single gender" and effectively exclusive to men. ... Mrs Ebadi, a human rights lawyer exiled in the UK, said the real agenda was to reduce the proportion...

Jewish groups and Israeli politicians on Wednesday lashed out at German authorities after Bavarian prosecutors filed criminal charges against Rabbi David Goldberg for performing a circumcision. The rabbi has been slapped with charges of committing bodily harm, in the first known case to arise from an anti-circumcision ruling in May. "The charges laid against a Jewish religious leader for performing a fully legal action is outrageous and a very troubling escalation sending a deeply problematic message to the Jewish community,” European Jewish Congress (EJC) President Dr. Moshe Kantor said. “It has been many decades since a Jew was charged for...

A German rabbi has been criminally charged for performing a circumcision, committing what the indictment calls "bodily harm," media outlets reported on Tuesday. The charges against David Goldberg, who is a mohel and the Rabbi of the city of Hof Saale in Bavaria, is the first known case following the anti-circumcision ruling issued by a German court in May.According to media reports, the charges were filed by a physician from the city of Hessen, and was based on the court ruling which stated that performing a religious circumcision ritual can be considered a crime. A Bavarian radio station reported that...

PARIS/LONDON (Reuters) - The City of London financial district, though diminished by scandals and job cuts, is proving irresistible to fed-up Parisian bankers fleeing France's rising taxes and the feeling that they're not best loved at home. French financial groups big and small, from advisory firms and private equity houses to big banks like Societe Generale, are looking at London as a possible shelter from a new 75 percent tax rate on top French earners, bankers say. Take Bertrand Meunier, who recently agreed to move to London to take a job at private equity firm CVC Capital Partners, leaving a...

<p>The TV station’s military reporter Alon Ben-David, who earlier this year was given extensive access to the Israel Air Force as it trained for a possible attack, reported that, since upgraded sanctions against Iran have failed to force a suspension of the Iranian nuclear program in the past two months, “from the prime minister’s point of view, the time for action is getting ever closer.”</p>

European governments are rushing to boost stockpiles of crude oil and fuel, anxious to comply with new EU rules and amid reports that Israel is preparing to launch an attack on Iran. Belgium and the Netherlands have issued tenders to import a total of around 250,000 tonnes of diesel and gasoline for delivery in September and October, their agencies said. France has also bought diesel and awarded a crude oil tender this week while Belgium is increasing its crude stocks. "This is yet another unexpected source of support for oil demand… [It] shows how the geopolitical concerns about Iran and...

Almost half of British citizens would vote to leave the EU if there was a referendum, pollsters say. A survey by Canadian firm Angus Reid out on Tuesday (14 August) noted that 46 percent would vote to leave. It also said 54 percent believe the last 40 years of British EU membership has had a "negative" effect on the country and that 81 percent are happy they do not use the euro. The numbers are more or less stable compared to December 2010 (the oldest data cited). At the time, 48 percent of people wanted Britain to leave. Amid talk...

The eurozone was shown to be on the edge of a double-dip recession today, as even the powerhouse economies faltered in the face of the three-year-old debt crisis. The combined economies of the 17-members contracted by 0.2pc in the three months from April to June, according to Eurostat, following zero growth in the first quarter. News of the contraction came amid further speculation that Greece will push for a two-year extension of its latest austerity programme. Germany managed 0.3pc growth, thanks to strong investment and domestic consumption, and the Netherlands posted an up-tick in production of 0.2pc. But the growth...

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says plans to set up a no-fly zone over parts of Syria are "not on the front burner," despite persistent calls from rebel forces there that they need the added protection from escalating regime air strikes. In an interview with The Associated Press on Monday, Panetta said he is confident the U.S. could successfully enforce a no-fly zone over Syria, but doing so would require a "major, major policy decision" that has not yet been made. "We have planned for a number of contingencies that could take place and one of those possible contingencies is developing...

The White House continues to talk about Turkey not only as a regional ally but also as a model for reform in the Middle East. It has been several years, however, since Turkish reforms contributed to democracy. The latest case in point is Turkish real estate reform. The Turkish government has announced new regulations. Here is the rub: While the government has removed onerous rules and regulations that made navigating Turkish real estate a nightmare, the government has in effect legislated its traditional hatreds. Armenians, for example, need not apply. They are by law unable to own housing or businesses...

Security services record Islamist exodus to Egypt Published: 12 Aug 12 10:53 CET German security services have recorded a leap in the number of radical Islamists traveling to Egypt, according to a report due to be published in Monday's Der Spiegel magazine.

Banks, companies and investors are preparing themselves for a collapse of the euro. Cross-border bank lending is falling, asset managers are shunning Europe and money is flowing into German real estate and bonds. The euro remains stable against the dollar because America has debt problems too. But unlike the euro, the dollar's structure isn't in doubt. There is increasing anxiety, particularly because politicians have not managed to solve the problems. Despite all their efforts, the situation in Greece appears hopeless. Spain is in trouble and, to make matters worse, Germany's Constitutional Court will decide in September whether the European Stability...

A group of lawmakers from German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party called Tuesday for same-sex couples in civil partnerships to be given the same tax breaks as heterosexual married couples, but the idea faced skepticism among traditionally minded colleagues.

Nadja Drygalla, a German rower who already competed at the Olympics, is on her way home from London a bit earlier than she intended. Drygalla decided to leave the Games after reports surfaced that she is connected to a neo-Nazi group in Germany.

The keepers were delighted at yet another success in the park’s white lion breeding programme. But Jojo’s umbilical cord had not been severed cleanly, and it looked like she was developing an infection, calling for vet treatment every day. Mother lion Nala would not tolerate such intrusion, “So I took the little one home with me,” said Jeanette Wurms, the 36-year-old lion keeper at the park. It was there that her dog Lejon, a name which is actually Swedish for lion, took a liking to the little big cat. “Lejon looked after her with me from the first day, licking...

A recent poll says 51 percent of Germans now believe Germany would be better off without the euro. The Emnid poll for the Bild am Sonntag mass circulation weekly showed 51pc of Germans believed Europe's top economy would be better outside the 17-country eurozone. Twenty-nine percent said it would be worse off, AFP reports. The survey also showed that 71pc of Germans wanted Greece to leave the euro if it did not live up to its austerity promises. Economy Minister Philipp Roesler told Bild am Sonntag there were "considerable doubts whether Greece is living up to its reform promises." Implications...

WARSAW, POLAND — Fresh from a warm embrace from iconic Polish leader Lech Walesa, Mitt Romney will wrap up a three-country trip overseas Tuesday with a major speech that he hopes will send a message that he's tough and more willing to take a harder line with rogue nations than President Barack Obama is. Romney arrived in Warsaw late Monday after a day in Gdansk, where he enjoyed the most enthusiastic reception of his six-day trip, which was marred by controversies at the first two stops, in London and Jerusalem. He was greeted in Gdansk by crowds that swarmed in...

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) defended a German official who has been accused of performing the 'Nazi salute' during the opening ceremony of the London Games. Honorary IOC member Walther Troger was filmed extending his left arm back and forth repeatedly as the German team marched around London's Olympic stadium on July 27, The Telegraph reported. IOC spokesman Mark Adams vehemently denied allegations that Troger’s hand motion was a Nazi salute. "I can't think of anyone who is less anti-Semitic than him," he said adding that he is “devastated that it was interpreted in this way." According to The Telegraph,...

"The long-term strategic objective of these Islamist organizations is to destabilize and democratically and liberally elected states and to influence political decision-making." — Report, German State of Lower Saxony The German state of Lower Saxony has published a practical guide to extremist Islam to help citizens identify tell-tale signs of Muslims who are becoming radicalized.Security officials say the objective of the document is to mitigate the threat of home-grown terrorist attacks by educating Germans about radical Islam and encouraging them to refer suspected Islamic extremists to the authorities.The move reflects mounting concern in Germany over the growing assertiveness of...

Recently, new information about the Munich Massacre at the 1972 Olympic Games was released by German police as a result of pressure from German investigative reporters. It was reported that the “Black September” terrorists were helped by a Nazi group in Germany to get fake IDs, weapons and access to the Olympic Village.

Angela Merkel and François Hollande pledged on Friday "to do everything to protect" the European Union's single currency, papering over deep divisions between them over how to tackle the Spanish and Italian debt crisis. The German chancellor and French president issued a joint statement following a crisis telephone call echoing Mario Draghi's promise on Thursday that the European Central Bank would do whatever it took to save the euro. "France and Germany are fundamentally tied to the integrity of the euro area," they said in the statement. "They are determined to do everything to protect it. "Member states, like the...

BOSTON (AP) -- Divers have discovered a World War II-era German submarine nearly 70 years after it sank under withering U.S. attack in waters off Nantucket. The U-550 was found Monday by a privately funded group organized by New Jersey lawyer Joe Mazraani. It was the second trip in two years to the site by the team, some of whom had been searching for the lost U-boat for two decades. Using side-scan sonar, the seven-man team located the wreck listing to its side in deep water about 70 miles south of Nantucket. Sonar operator Garry Kozak said he spotted the...

Until this week, proof of a sunken Nazi submarine in Labrador was confined to old rumours of dark shadows in the Churchill River. The stories go back decades, suggesting that German U-boats had snaked along the river bottom and deep into Labrador. Now newly released sonar images depicting a mysterious submerged shape near Happy Valley-Goose Bay have generated excitement among those who believe the old tales and skepticism among those who don’t.

After dutifully abiding by EU fiscal rules, Finland's tiny population remains surprisingly phlegmatic about bailing out less disciplined euro zone members, and is mostly clinging on to its faith in the single currency project. That faith has been tested as a succession of struggling nations make ever greater demands on the sounder economies in the currency bloc, but it is not yet at breaking point. "We had to sort out our own problems ourselves in the past. That's why people are asking, do we have to help others?" said Maija Siirala, a freelance dressmaker and alterations specialist. Finland, one of...

German intelligence estimates that "around 90" terror attacks that "can be attributed to organizations that are close to al-Qaeda or jihadist groups" were carried out in Syria between the end of December and the beginning of July, as reported by the German daily Die Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). This was revealed by the German government in a response to a parliamentary question. In response to the same question, the German government admitted that it had received several reports from the German foreign intelligence service, the BND, on the May 25 massacre in the Syrian town of Houla. But it noted...

Police in the south of France have launched an investigation after a woman claimed she was beaten up by seven men in Viviez for attending a party during Ramadan. The young woman, originally from Morocco, was driving home from the party on Friday night when two other cars trapped hers ... On her way to the station, the seven men tracked her down again and assaulted her a second a time.

Retirement In Germany May Rise To Age 69 While Greece Is At Age 58 A senior German retailer pointed out to me that the current economic environment in Europe is unfair and that retirement age for workers should be higher – not lower as the situation exists for workers in Greece. He believes that a productive country is a healthy country. He is pessimistic for the near term outlook of retail trade in Europe, saying that any bailout will lead to higher taxation and depress sales. In 2007 Germany raised its retirement age from 65 to 67 and the German...

The German news magazine Spiegel reports that the IMF has told the EU it will provide no additional funds for Greece. The report has sparked fresh fears that Greece could fall into bankruptcy by the autumn. A report by a German news magazine on Sunday sparked fresh concerns about the possibility of Greece being forced into insolvency. In an article published on its website, Spiegel cites unnamed senior European Union sources in Brussels who told the news magazine that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had signaled it would not contribute to any further aid for Greece.

When the London games officially launch July 27, Bob Costas will stage his own protest of what he calls a "baffling" decision: the NBC sportscaster plans to call out the International Olympic Committee for denying Israel's request for a moment of silence acknowledging the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes and coaches at the 1972 Games.

Berlin failed to heed warnings prior to 1972 Olympics massacre, in which 11 Israeli athletes were killed, magazine reports. The German government had advance warning of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, Der Spiegel reported online on Sunday. A few weeks before the massacre, in which 11 Israeli athletes were killed by the Palestinian terrorist organization Black September, the report indicates that German intelligence and the German foreign ministry received information indicating that a terror operation was being planned at the Olympics. A few days before the Olympics, an Italian paper reported the same threat.

(Reuters) - Hundreds of unemployed Spaniards who had walked hundreds of kilometres (miles) to Madrid joined protests on Saturday against Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's government and its handling of an economic crisis. Demonstrations have swollen across Spain since the centre-right government announced 65 billion euros in new spending cuts two weeks ago to cut its deficit and avert a full-blown bailout, with firefighters and police joining a mass protest on Thursday. Several hundred people journeyed on foot from the southern region of Andalucia, which has one of the worst unemployment rates in Spain, and from northern Catalonia and other areas...